Subscribe

Lower electricity bills by cooperating with Quebec

By better using or even expanding our existing electricity system connections with Quebec, we can use low-cost Quebec water power (4 cents per kWh) to help meet some of Ontario’s power needs. This would be far cheaper and safer than rebuilding our aging nuclear plants (19 - 37 cents per kWh). Ontario needs to learn its lesson from a long history of nuclear projects that have seen massive cost overruns and delays, and opt for low cost Quebec water power instead.

Comments
(62)

I certainly agree with buying from Quebec.....but let's use that power to replace some of the $0.90/KWH subsidized Green Energy generation. Cancel some IWT's....and get power from Quebec. Now that's a good start....

We could replace almost all the power currently coming from the Darlington Nuclear Station with Quebec water power and save more than $1 billion per year. This is a far less risky solution than replacing thousands of metres of radioactive tubing and other equipment in a 20-year-old nuclear plant. New Brunswick recently saw their costs blow through the roof at its Point Lepreau reactor. Quebec studied a similar rebuild for its Gentilly reactor and concluded it made no economic sense.

It will be in Quebec's best interest to sign a long term, reasonable price, as other green products are going to continue to drop in price. More wind mills, more solar! Now if we can only get Biodiesel out there.......

We have a surplus of power in Ontario already. I don't know where this idea even came from. We already sell power off cheap to Quebec and the US and spill water from Niagara rather than generate it all. Currently we are even paying wind and solar to NOT produce energy at times and wind in particular does not produce electricity when we need it. The FIT program is what is going to bankrupt this province in conjunction with the gas plant fiasco. Who ever thought Detroit would go bankrupt? We are on the same path people.

We're not advocating to import 100% of our electricity supply from Quebec. But our American neighbours are smart enough to buy low-cost clean water power from QC, and ON should too. By 2030 we could meet all our electricity needs with a combination of made-in-ON green power, conservation and water power from QC, all for much lower price than new or rebuilt nuclear, and with no radioactive waste.

The fact that the Liberals badly blundered (despite good intentions) the implementation of wind power in Ontario doesn't make wind power bad. Instead of massive commercial wind farms (the old Ont. Hydro gang dinosaur thinking), let's have community-owned and cooperatives building people-scale clean power. Local ownership was the key to success in Denmark, Germany, Belgium and other places.

Renewables like wind and solar have completely messed up Germany's grid and many of the larger manufacturers have installed their own power to avoid blackouts. Germany is building 23 coal fired generation plants. Lets not do what Germany did. Their residential power rates are over 30 cents per kWh.

To the contrary, Germany is well on its way to moving toward a renewable grid and has lowered its GHG emissions in the process. Post Fukushima they shut down 7 of their nuclear reactors and are on their way to shuttering the rest by 2022. In this piece by energy guru Amory Lovins http://bit.ly/1cSL2oz, he debunks the myths you write about. The fact is that Germany is closing more coal plants then they’re opening, leading to a net decrease of at least 7.2 GW. Renewables supplied 23% of German electricity in 2012, driving dramatically lower wholesale power prices that are attracting energy-intensive industry, making German industrial power highly competitive, enabling rising power exports. In other words, “renewables are walloping our favorite old technologies.” Furthermore, “Germany is building the renewable foundation for declining long-term electricity prices. Sure enough, German wholesale power prices have fallen about 30 percent in the past two years to near eight-year lows, putting utilities that underinvested in renewables under severe profit pressure.” OPG should get with the program and start investing in renewables rather than a high-cost, dangerous and dying nuclear industry.

Parker, the fact is there were a lot of very old coal power plants in Germany's which needed to be shut down. Only some of them are being replaced by new ones, which means there has been an overall net decrease in Germany's coal plant fleet. Check out this article at cleantechnica.com/2013/03/11/coal-plants-out-of-style-in-germay It contains a map of all the cancelled coal projects, and debunks many of the myths you write about.

Manitoba and Quebec are two of the lowest cost electricity jurisdictions in North America due to their high (almost exclusive) use of hydroelectric power. I agree that we should be partnering with these two provinces to lower our cost basis, in addition to creating other long-term power investments of our own.

Moving quickly to a more renewable grid is critical for both GHG mitigation and the overall safety of our environment. To that end I support elec. imports from Quebec as we build a less nuclear dependent grid.

As a mechanical engineer who studied nuclear plant engineering at the graduate level, post fukushima I now realize that land contamination and evacuation of people is the immediate risk of a nuclear plant, but that the biggest risk of a severe nuclear plant failure, is lake water contamination, for which there are no contingency plans in Ontario. We are truly crazy to continue to take the risk of contaminating Lake Ontario as a result of a severe plant failure.

To that end we need a concrete plan to phase out our reactors and build a generation system appropriate for the needs of the next 100 years.

Then you must have heard of thorium which is a replacement for current nuclear and SAFE, check it out, that is the future not renewables which can't be stored, don't produce when we need it and can only function with HUGE subsidies. Check out Spain Portugal and even Germany and see how they have changed their stance on renewables.

Ontario was once the economic powerhouse of Canada. Unfortunately, it is moving to have-not status all too quickly. Further reducing our own capabilities to sustain ourselves, such as buying imported power, will further weaken our economy and our base for industrial longevity. Nuclear and hydro are the reliable, sustainable, and something we can do for ourselves within our province. Let's build Ontario back up.

It doesn't make sense to spend 19 to 37 cents per kWh to re-build Darlington when we can get water power from Quebec for only 4 cents per kWh. Water power from Quebec means lower electricity rates for Ontario's manufacturing industries. This will make them more competitive in international markets and will help to protect good blue collar jobs in Ontario. We import uranium from Saskatchewan and natural gas from Alberta and the U.S. What is wrong with importing low cost, hydro-electricity from Quebec? Let's have free trade within Canada

A huge amount of this excess power that Quebec has is essentially stolen from Newfoundland. The new hydroelectric dam that NL is building upstream of the old one (where Quebec gets its extremely under priced power) is going change things.

Hydro Quebec's contract for water power from Churchill Falls in Labrador will remain in effect until 2041. The new water power project in Labrador will simply increase Labrador's total amount of water power available for export.

Water power is cleaner, lower cost and more reliable than nuclear power. In 1998 seven of our nuclear reactors were shut down for safety reasons. All of these reactors were shut down for at least 5 years. As a result, we had to increase the output of our dirty coal plants by 120% to keep the lights on. Let's work with Quebec to build a green future for Canadians.

The unfortunate part of hydro produced energy, is that hydro dams are devastating to the environment. One has to look at what happened at Quebec large hydro-electric projects such as La Grande. Large areas were flooded, and wildlife eliminated. Furthermore, the fluctuations in the levels of water ahead of the dams reduces water wildlife production.

I agree that the Quebec dams have created a lot of problems. And I don't support the building of new dams. However, the dams now exist and they are not going to be torn down. So I think it is better for us to buy surplus water power from Quebec rather than re-build the Darlington nuclear reactors at a very high economic and social cost.

Haven't any of you heard of Niagara Falls? Big Becky and the power tunnel completed to divert water under the city that it turned out we don't need due to a surplus of power. We have enough power and sorry Nuclear and hydroelectric are the most reliable options for a 21st century economy folks. Germany is discovering that.

Importing water power from Quebec will save us money and would make re-building Darlington's nuclear station unnecessary. This cleaner, safer and cheaper option makes far more economic and environmental sense for Ontario than continuing down an unsustainable nuclearized path.

Working towards a balance of hydro, wind and solar will make Ontario's grid more cost effective and eliminate the out of control cost and safety risks that come with nuclear. We do need to get our off shore wind projects back on track in Ontario. We do need to develop our grid connections with Quebec. Eliminating the "clean energy benefit" which subsidizes energy consumption instead of prioritizing efficiency and conservation needs to happen now.

Buying Quebec power should have been done decades ago. It is not so easy to do as Quebec has long term contracts in place to sell the power now being produced and in fact I think they have sold power that is to be produced. I don't think they built damns without first selling the power to finance it.

Actually in 2012, 92% of Hydro Quebec's exports were pursuant to short-term contracts. So these export sales could be easily switched to Ontario. In addition, Hydro Quebec is now building two new water power generating stations which it doesn't yet have any customers for. So this is a golden opportunity for Ontario to contract for this power.

Hydro power from Quebec makes sense. Conservation equals jobs. Smart meters are going to be a huge market as the US has only 2% of homes installed. Building monitoring and control software is going to be big business. Just doing refrigerant testing like California could generate a new industry overnight while also reducing peak loading and reduce GHGs. CHP could be installed in every structure and industrial operation. Ontario makes many conservation based devices and services, most notably the entire renovation industry. We even make fuel cells that could power and comfortably heat our homes and businesses. Encouraging the vast financial and health benefits of good building design on a wider scale that incorporates the array of options like passive and active solar integrated with heat pumps along with thermal mass or vacuum insulated panels. Microgrids are much more efficient and are a cost effective solution to providing reliable baseload power that is critical in a disaster.

Nuclear power is still only used in Canada by Ontario, it directly causes thousands of cancers, illness, death in First Nations communities where it is mostly mined in Canada. We flush millions of gallons of chemically hot water from the stations into our Lake Ontario drinking water. It's a colossal waste of tax payers money when jobs and services are being cut. The waste is a well known eternal pioison. Clean alternatives are a nobrainer, and create more jobs! And save our children's health and planet!

Greetings. Buying hydro electricity from Quebec and combining that with renewables, like wind, would enable us to avoid costly rebuilds of old nuclear stations. Best of all, we could emulate the green partnership that Denmark and Norway established. When the wind blows in Denmark, the dams in Norway stay shut, and visa versa.

Yes. Quebec's demand peaks in the winter, while ON's demand peaks in the summer, making them natural partners. Furthermore, QC's hyrdro reserves can turn ON's wind resources into baseload power. When our wind production is above average, we can export our excess wind power to QC to help keep the lights on in Montreal. As a result, QC can store more water in its reservoirs. When our wind power output is below average, QC can use the stored water to produce more hydro electricity to export back to Ontario. That is, by combining Ontario wind with QC's reservoirs, our wind power can be converted into a firm, 24/7 base-load source of electricity.

Hydro Quebec has a huge and growing power surplus. As a result, our American neighbours are able to import water power from Quebec at very low prices. We believe that Ontario should do so too. By importing water power from Quebec we can lower our electricity bills and phase-out our aging nuclear reactors.

Angela, wind can never be a base load source of electricity. If it was even the slightest bit consistent, perhaps it could work on a planned basis. A graph of wind production from any large IWT facility (information available on the IESO site) matched up with the demand curve illustrates how it just doesn't meet the needs. Your point is spot on about electricity from Quebec. In fact, Hydro Quebec has more electrical generation capacity from water than Ontario has from all sources combined. However, very, very few people even know this. There is more than enough there that Ontario wouldn't have to build a single industrial wind turbine...but it's corporate interests that would be hurt if that was the case.

Steve, the only corporate interests that would be hurt are the nuclear industry interests. Water power from QC is so plentiful and low-cost that we could shut down all Ontario Power Generation’s nuclear reactors when they come to the end of their lives – Pickering by 2014, Darlington by 2020 – rather than spend tens of billions $ to extend their lives. But since Pickering and Darlington are owned and operated by Ontario Power Generation – that is, the citizens of Ontario – we would all gain by replacing them with much lower-cost water power imports. Furthermore, we wouldn’t be risking the drinking water of 9 million people that draw from Lake Ontario. And we wouldn’t be producing radioactive waste that needs to be isolated from the environment for 1 million years. It’s simply irrational on every level to re-build Darlington when we could import water power from Quebec.

Steve, although wind is a variable source of electricity, Angela is correct in stating that it can be 'converted' into base-load. By using wind resources when they are available, system operators are able to ramp down hydro output which allows the reservoirs behind the dams to rebuild head. Essentially, the reservoir acts as a 'giant battery', which is able to recharge it's potential energy in direct proportion to the system operator's transmission of available wind (kinetic)energy. When wind resources taper off, hydro output is tapered (ramped) back up. By utilizing this strategy of consuming variable renewable resources when available, our hydro (base-load renewable resources) are given the ability to replenish via the natural flow of water into .

I have taken a look at the top ten ideas and in comparison, this should be number 1. Ideas voted should be all encompassing in its utility to us as Ontarians and quite frankly, nothing says better off than cheaper, cleaner energy. As a businesswoman and an energy management student I am fully aware of the effects this strategy would have on our province, let alone the benefits to us all as Canadians. I just do not understand why do we continue paying for more expensive, less safe energy production methods while we let US take advantage of our cheaper, cleaner energy. This does not pass the common sense test, let alone that of the business investment one. Less Nukes, More Hydro people!!!

Today's Windsor Star editorial calls for water power from QC instead of rebuilt nuclear reactors. Here's a quote: "The reasonable option would be to stop looking at nuclear and start looking at hydroelectric power, which is readily available right next door, in Quebec. Jack Gibbons, chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, thinks the same thing. He says importing water power from Quebec could lower our electricity bills by more than $1 billion a year. The lines are already there, and they could handle enough power to replace 86 per cent of the output of Darlington. Hydroelectricity is clean, efficient and renewable. It is, as Gibbons says, virtually on our doorstep. What’s not to like?" http://bit.ly/1a9ocot

The status quo just won't let go, and these folks who resist change and defend Nukes and fossil fuels for electrical generation are sadly stuck in the rut of the 20th century. Move on or move over people and make room for renewable energy and hydro ( home made or imported ). This is the 21st century and climate change is happening whether or not you don't care for change.

As an Ontarian I would rather pay more and not depend on Quebec for anything more than we need to. Why the heck would anyone want to create a dependency on a province hell bent on separating from the rest of the country? They do not play fair as it is. It would be silly to give them more power (pun intended) than they already have

We would technically taking their power for peanuts. They would take our large excesses of nuclear and store it until we need it. Quebec separates, they still have to follow contractual obligations under the law or nobody would invest. If they shut off our power because we didnt want to pay an arbitrary hike in rates in the future, it would not be viewed kindly by its neighbours and electricity export markets.

Angela, the price of electricity in Germany is the equivalent of 36 cents a kWh for residential users and over 16 cents a kWh for industrial. That's not cheap! They are not the poster child that you make them out to be!

My point is: why would be rebuild Darlington at 8.6 cents/kWh (gov't's numbers, real numbers are likely 2.5 times that if history is to repeat itself) when we can import renewable water power from QC at 4.1 cents/kWh, and not have any toxic radioactive waste, or danger from accidents?

We can't afford billions to repair (refurbish) aging nuclear reactors and we can't afford the premium price to be paid to private operator Bruce Power!

To let these NUCLEAR WASTE FACTORIES keep turning out their deadly products and emissions will add insult to injury because the huge cost to maintain the highly radioactive waste, remaining toxic for millions of years, will be carried by our children and grandchildren and their offspring!

Energy efficiency and conservation first, renewable and sustainable power from solar, wind and water must be supported and prioritized!

Hydro-electric power from our neighbor Quebec should be brought in to replace nuclear base-load power.

It is clean and renewable and available at a price much lower than dangerous nuclear powered electricity!1

These changes must be introduced for our long term power supply immediately!!